“You can’t hear anything but wind during free fall, but once you open your canopy everything goes dead quiet. It’s like hang gliding, just you and the blue air and the incredible earth coming up slow. It’s not like flying—it is flying. So beautiful you forget to breathe. You’re excited, your heart’s pounding, but it’s like being in a trance, too. I like it better than the dive. Free fall’s just a way to get to that place. That peace.”
He stopped again, and Caddie thought, Finish it. Please, I just can’t stand this.
“Mark, the guy, the AFF student who jumped behind us—his girlfriend was filming his dive from the ground. He did—he did a hard turn to impress her. Make it look good. Dramatic. He forgot us, forgot where we were, he didn’t see us, we were a hundred feet from the drop zone and he didn’t see us. His turn made him fall too fast. He fell into our chute. He’s wrapped up like a mummy, trailing yards of red and white nylon, and the three of us—three of us hanging from his student chute because our main’s collapsed. I…I…I cut away. We weren’t going to make it. I cut away the tandem chute and pulled the reserve, but there wasn’t room. Wasn’t time. You should never, you should never cut your main that close. But we were coming in so fast. I did it. Holly hit first and she died. Under me. She died. I don’t remember anything. Mark Kohler broke his ankle.”
The music had stopped. Caddie wanted it back because the silence was horrible. Cornel was making a little cup in the carpet with his thumb, hollowing it out with pinch-faced diligence. He looked shocked and miserable, and he was as helpless, as useless as she was. They both inhaled with hope when Thea shuffled over on her knees, closer to Magill’s limp body. But then Caddie was afraid she was going to embrace him, wrap him up in her arms like a baby—he wouldn’t like that, he’d hate it. She heard herself blurt out, “It wasn’t your fault.”
Just as she feared, his lips went flat. “I don’t feel absolved.” He still had his eyes closed. Two tears had rolled into his hair on either side when he’d said, “She died.” The tracks still glistened, untouched.
Thea didn’t embrace him. She bent to him and put a kiss in the center of his forehead. He opened his eyes. She said something very soft—Caddie couldn’t hear it.
She wanted to do something, but she couldn’t move; she felt stuck, not able to unwind her arms from around her legs and stand up. It wasn’t your fault—what a ridiculous thing to say. What would it feel like to believe you had stolen someone’s life? Someone you loved, who trusted you. Who was innocent.
Magill sat up, and after that she could move, she wasn’t frozen anymore. He was holding the sides of his face and smiling so painfully, a taut spreading of his lips. But he was coming around. What had Thea said to him? Was it good that he’d told them the story? Did he feel lighter now, as if fresh air had blown away some of his sadness and shame? Or did that happen only in books?
Cornel did something brilliant then. Not on purpose, she didn’t think, but it saved the day. “Is it me,” he said crankily, “or could anybody else eat a horse?”
“Let me make something,” Caddie offered. “I could at least open a can of soup, I have chicken noodle, bean with bacon—or toasted cheese sandwiches, how would you like that? Or, I know, bacon and eggs.”
“Mmm,” they said, nodding appreciatively but not looking up from the leftovers they were devouring. Thea and Cornel had fallen on a plastic container of beef stew like refugees; they hadn’t even heated it. Magill was standing over the sink scooping in cold rice as if it were haute cuisine. The kitchen was filled with the sounds of chewing and swallowing, satisfied humming, forks scraping, lips smacking. Caddie found that funny but also faintly nauseating. She boiled water for tea—nobody wanted any but her; they were sticking with beer—and nibbled on a carrot stick. She didn’t even want that, but she wanted attention on herself even less.
“So that kid yesterday,” Magill said with his mouth full, “that was your grandson, Cornel?”
He grunted yes.
“I didn’t even know you had one. Where does he live?”
“Richmond.”
Caddie hadn’t known, either. Cornel was widowed and now childless, but yesterday a sweet-faced, tired-looking blonde woman and an eleven-year-old boy had appeared on the front porch at Wake House, looking for him. The boy was Zack, the woman was Donna; she was the widow of Cornel’s son, who had been killed in an automobile accident in 1999. That surprised Caddie, too; Cornel spoke of his son so infrequently, she’d assumed he’d been dead for years and years.
“What’s his name?” Magill asked. He’d been on his way to physical therapy and had seen Cornel’s family only as he was leaving.
“Zachary.” He snorted. “What a name. There’s no Zacharys in the family, I can tell you that, ours or hers. Coulda been worse, though, coulda been Jason. Coulda been Alex.”
“All lovely names,” Thea said mildly. “What is the matter with you?”
“Get this, if it was a girl they were gonna name it Courtney. Hah!”
Thea just rolled her eyes. “Donna’s a darling. We had the nicest talk.”
“She’s all right.”
“She said they have a nice house down there. Pretty little house in the suburbs.”
Cornel shrugged, scraping stew gravy from the bottom of the bowl.
“She said she’d love it if you’d move down there. Be closer to them.”
“Yeah.” He shoved his chair back and stood. “I’m still hungry. Mind if I just…” He opened the refrigerator and bent inside. “Tell you what she really wants. Wants me to move in. Can’t you picture that?”
Magill had moved aside so that Caddie could put dirty dishes in the sink. He looked tired, she thought, but not worse, not drained or unhappy or regretful. Thank God. She wanted to stay near him, or say something to make him smile, send affection to him without embarrassing him. She leaned back against the counter and hooked her hand over his shoulder. As if she just needed a place to put it and his shoulder was the closest perch.
“I certainly can picture it,” Thea exclaimed. “Why wouldn’t you? What a perfectly lovely idea.”
“Perfectly lovely idea,” Cornel mimicked, backing out of the refrigerator with a container of cottage cheese and a jar of olives. “We eat these?”
Caddie thought about Zack, a weedy, wispy boy in baggy clothes, pale hands clutching a computer game he’d rarely looked up from except for quick, shy glances at his mother. He’d spoken only once in Caddie’s hearing. Donna had been telling Cornel about how Zack was having a little trouble in school this year, in fact he’d gotten a D in English and would be taking remedial reading in summer school. He was a whiz at math, though, she’d added quickly, reaching over to ruffle his crew cut—which had made him pull away. But then he’d darted a sideways look at Cornel and asked hopefully, “How ’bout my dad? Mom didn’t know—did my dad do good in math?”
Cornel had lowered his bushy brows and glared at him for an unnaturally long time. Caddie had been afraid he wasn’t going to answer at all, but then he’d snapped out, “Well, did he do well in math. I don’t remember, it’s too long ago. Quit playing fool games on that machine, that’s all you need to do. Read a damn book for a change.”
Poor Zack recoiled, looking stunned, as if the family cat had suddenly scratched him. Donna said in a bright tone, “Oh, I bet he was, Daddy was good at everything,” and Cornel started to squirm in his rocking chair. Caddie saw him bare his teeth in a clumsy try at a smile, an apology, but too late, Zack had already ducked his head and gone back to his game. She’d been searching for a resemblance, a feature grandfather and grandson had in common, and finally she saw it. They had the same knack for shutting people out behind ferocious scowls.
“Why wouldn’t you go live with them if they want you to?” Thea asked, plucking an olive out of the jar. “What would hold you back? I can’t even imagine.” She leaned toward Cornel, both elbows on the cluttered kitchen table, resting her chin in her hands. When she turned her full attentio
n on him like that, it always discombobulated him.
“Because. Then I’d be dependent. What do you mean, why can’t you imagine? Who’d want to be a burden to their own relations? Me, I’d rather be dead.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. Sometimes we help the ones we love, sometimes we need their help. It’s a cycle. What could be more natural? Didn’t you love taking care of your family? But you’d rather die now than let them take care of you. It’s a kind of arrogance, isn’t it?”
He blinked in shock, then rallied. “Hell, no. Taking care of an old fart is nobody’s idea of a good time, old age makes sure of that.”
“Oh, age is just a number. What if a year had fourteen months instead of twelve? Then I’d be…” She turned to Caddie and Magill. “How old would I be?”
“Old age.” Cornel curled his lips as if they were swear words. “It’s a lot more than a number. It’s losing body part after body part. Everything goes, it’s one damn kick in the teeth after another. One—”
“Fifty-nine,” Magill said. “Multiply your age by twelve-fourteenths, which is six-sevenths, six times sixty-nine—”
“Old age,” Thea said, “isn’t any different from any other age. It’s still you. I feel like I’m the same age I’ve always been!”
“Really?” Caddie said.
“It’s still a surprise when I hear somebody call me old. And when I look in the mirror—” She made a humorous expression of horror. “But I’m always young in my dreams. Isn’t that odd? In dreams I’m my old self, my real self.”
Cornel was staring at his clawed hands. “Getting old is for the birds. Time sneaks up on you like a…like a mugger. Look at these. I used to have a man’s hands. Now I got hair growing outta my ears, I’m cold all the time—”
“But underneath—”
“Can’t eat this, can’t eat—”
“But underneath, you’re still a boy, aren’t you? Don’t you feel that? Cornel Montgomery. Did they used to call you Cornie?”
He smiled in spite of himself.
“I love being alive,” Thea declared. “I love it more, not less, the older I get. I’m still a girl under all these wrinkles. I’m still burning bright, and everything’s still a mystery—I never want to leave, I’m just getting started!”
Everything was still a mystery to Thea, too? Caddie didn’t know whether to be encouraged by that or demoralized.
“That’s because you feel good,” Cornel said. “You’re in your young old age. Wait’ll you get to your old old age, wait’ll everything starts to go. All it takes is one little stroke, one little fall and you break your hip, bingo, into the nursing home. Diabetes, you go deaf, you can’t drive anymore, quadruple bypass. Prostate, cataracts, knee replacement. Hiatal hernia. Joints hurt, can’t sleep, can’t pee. Canes, walkers, ugly shoes—”
“But—”
“We’re invisible,” he kept on. “I’m an old man, that’s all I am. Nobody looks at me, I might as well be smoke. Young people think we’re fools, they laugh in our faces.”
“That’s not true.”
“Donna’s the one who’s a fool. Me in Richmond, what a joke. I would rather die than drag down my kin. One of these days I’ll be wearing diapers—and she’s not even blood kin.”
“Zack is,” Thea argued. “Did you ever think you might be able to help him? Maybe that’s why she wants you down there, because her son needs a man, a father.”
“What’s a boy that age want with an old man? Hell’s bells, I don’t know a GameBoy from a Playboy.”
“Why are you so ashamed of being old? It’s life, Cornel, it’s nature! You could help them, they could help you. What’s undignified about that?”
“I don’t want to be dependent. Period, the end. Wake House, that’s the last stop before the nursing home. I hope I die there. Those are the lucky ones, the ones that don’t wake up in the morning. Bernie told me the same stupid story about his lumbago three times yesterday.”
“Dependent—you make it such a dirty word! If I had any family at all, if I had anybody and they wanted to take care of me, do you think I’d say no?”
“That’s fine, but you’re—” Cornel sucked in his breath. “Oh no, don’t do that, now.”
“I’m all right.” But she was weeping, tears slipping down her cheeks in quick streaks, spreading dark plops on the bosom of her dress.
Cornel was beside himself. He half stood, half crouched over her, moving his hands in ineffectual feints in Thea’s direction, almost touching, then jerking away. “Listen, don’t pay any attention, that was all bull. I get going and can’t shut up. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not.” She stood up. “It’s this grass. Is this what it does, Henry? I’m sorry, I never meant to get like this.”
“No, my fault,” Cornel insisted. “It’s that pot, you’re right. I got on a tear and couldn’t shut up! I’m not like this usually.”
That made Magill laugh. Cornel sent him an urgent help me out look.
“Are you all right?” Caddie said, coming close to Thea.
“I am perfectly fine. Let’s go in the living room.” She slipped an arm around Caddie’s waist, as if to cheer her up—and just that quick, Caddie felt like crying, too. Oh, to hang on to Thea and burst into tears, snuffle on her shoulder while Thea held her like a mother and patted her on the back and crooned, “There, it’s all right, everything’s going to be fine.” And she hadn’t even smoked anything.
“Caddie, do something for me,” Thea said, giving her waist a squeeze. “A favor.”
“Name it.”
Thea steered her over to the piano before she could think of resisting. “Play something. Play anything at all.”
“What? No. Hey—” She tried to laugh during a push-pull moment, a subtle but actual physical struggle with Thea before she had to give in, only to avoid embarrassment, and sit down on the piano bench. “Thea—you know how I am. Not so good at this—”
“But not tonight. Not with us.” She went behind Caddie and put her hands on her shoulders. Support or coercion? “What would you play right now if you were by yourself?”
Something incredibly depressing, Caddie thought, running nervous, uncertain fingers over the thighs of her jeans. “This is no fair. Anyway, I’m not in the mood.”
Thea leaned over, put her cheek next to hers. “Please, please, please. I’m begging you. Play something by Billie Holiday.”
“Billie Holiday,” said Cornel, coming over to stand next to Thea, “she was good. I thought you just played classical. You know any Dinah Shore?”
She felt silly. What was she afraid of? Turning into her mother, the musician, Dr. Kardashian said, giving her mother too much power over her, something like that; all his theories about Caddie’s stage fright had something to do with her mother. Her way of handling the problem was to surrender, just not play in public anymore. So simple, and it worked perfectly: no more sweaty palms, faintness, or nausea, and somehow the Michaelstown Community Orchestra had managed to get along without her.
Magill, half draped over the long top of the piano, watched her with interested eyes. “Play something you love,” he suggested. “Close your eyes and pretend we’re not here.”
“Yeah, but you are here.” Looking and listening. She ran one hand over the keys, indecisive. If she played one note, they’d have her.
“We’ll sing along,” Thea promised. “Do you know ‘My Funny Valentine’? Play something you like, and we’ll sing.”
“Oh, people always think they know the words, but they don’t,” Caddie said bitterly. “They know the chorus or the line with the title in it and nothing else.”
“I know the words to everything,” Thea bragged. “If it’s old enough. Come on, try me.”
This was a lose-lose. She flexed her fingers, played a few random chords. “Okay, okay. I’d just like to say I hate this.” She hunted a safe key for “My Funny Valentine” and started to fiddle around with an intro. People forgot what a sad song it was. If she were
alone, she might’ve chosen it tonight. She kept her eyes on her hands and tried to give in to the slow, drifty melancholy of the piece, tried to forget herself. Thea sang with her for a little while, then hummed, then stopped completely, leaving her on her own. Of course.
Caddie liked her voice, she just didn’t like anyone else to hear it. She made it to the break and thought, I can plow on now. Like those people who walked on burning coals. Faith in something or other got them to the other side, but she’d use common sense. I might get burned, but I won’t die. Public performance is not fatal.
Clapping and compliments. She emerged from a grim, fuguelike state with Thea shaking her shoulders, pummeling her on the back. “Wonderful, oh, Caddie, I had no idea you could sing like that. Play some more.”
“Pretty damn good,” Cornel judged. “You know ‘Blue Moon’? How about ‘After You’ve Gone.’ ”
“Oh, that’s a good one.” Thea started to sing it but stalled after the first line.
Caddie’s cheeks burned with her excruciating pleasure and embarrassment. It was idiotic, but she was close to tears and laughter. She glanced at Magill, who was looking at her in that weird way again, as if he didn’t know who she was, or she’d suddenly turned into her own twin. “Fantastic,” he said softly, and she started to get up—she couldn’t stand it, it was too much—but Thea pressed her back down.
“ ‘Dream.’ Play ‘Dream’ for me, Caddie.”
“Okay.”
She got through that. Then “It Had to Be You” for Cornel. Magill asked if she knew any Dusty Springfield, and she played “Breakfast in Bed.”
“Hey, you’re good,” Cornel said, sounding amazed. “I heard this gal at the Holiday Inn once. She was okay, but you’re better.”
Caddie put her hands together in pretend-gratitude, but truthfully, she was thrilled. “Gosh, if I’d known you guys were going to be such pushovers.” Each song was a little easier than the last. The sensation that she was beating something, at least starting to get over a stupid, years-long hurdle right now, right now, made her feel breathless, and also as if she were sitting beside herself, observing. It was probably the company—what wonderful, kind friends she had, they were the next best thing to being alone, this probably wasn’t a duplicatable experience—but still. What a high.